


heaven's got very little to do with this

by amosanguis



Series: Episode & Movie Tags/AUs [56]
Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, BAMF James T. Kirk, Blood and Gore, Episode: s02e17 The Gamesters of Triskelion, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, The Gamesters of Triskelion AOS AU, Violence, aos kirk isn't as soft as tos kirk and i have feelings about it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-06
Updated: 2020-01-06
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:08:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22138339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amosanguis/pseuds/amosanguis
Summary: What happened on Triskelion is different for Jim than it was for Kirk in that the Thralls never really had a chance.
Relationships: James T. Kirk & Spock Prime, James T. Kirk/Spock
Series: Episode & Movie Tags/AUs [56]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/272215
Comments: 5
Kudos: 157





	heaven's got very little to do with this

**Author's Note:**

> \--Liberties taken with the weapons used in the final Triskelion fight in the TOS episode.  
> \--Title from:  
>  **Dr. McCoy** : What in the name of heaven is this?  
>  **Scott** : Heaven's got very little to do with this.

-z-

“You have no training,” Provider One says, “what entertainment do you think you could give us that would be worthy of letting go an entire ship of potential Thralls?”

Jim leans forward, glares down at the writhing, glowing disconnected brains. “I have no training _here_ ,” he says. “But don’t think that means I’ve none at all.”

-

There are—

It’s—

Look. There are memories in Jim’s head that don’t belong to him.

Spock – old Spock, _Ambassador_ Spock – looks at him with something that reads like shame and he apologizes, his voice carrying through all the time and distance between them.

“Can you undo it?” Jim asks, leaning back in his chair, his elbow resting on the armrest of his chair as his chin rested in his hand, the two of them peering at each other through their respective viewscreens. “Can you un-meld me?”

The Ambassador doesn’t look away as he says, “No.”

-

“We are not without mercy, you are laying down your life for your crew, so they will be able to watch on their viewscreens. Give them a good show, _Captain_ ,” Provider Two spits Jim’s title like a curse.

“I have no intention of laying down anything,” Jim mutters, sharing an exasperated look with Uhura.

“Captain,” Chekov starts, his wide and so-damn-young eyes _pleading_ with Jim, his accent thickened by his emotions, “they don’t know any better. Surely, you don’t _have_ to kill them?”

Provider Three cuts off whatever Jim is about to say—

“It was agreed,” Three says. “For the _Enterprise_ , for the freedom of all Thralls – there must be three deaths. If any of your opponents fall simply injured, another Thrall will take their place. And another. And another. Until the appropriate death count has been reached.”

Jim squeezes Chekov’s shoulder and then he meets Uhura’s eyes and she gives him a nod – one that tells him she understands, that she stands by him – and Jim nods back and turns away, picks up a weapon and moves to the center of the ring – pushing away all thoughts of Chekov and Uhura, of the _Enterprise_ crew he knows is watching—

(“ _Captain_.”

“Spock,” Jim looks up at the sky, “is that you?”

“ _Yes, sir. I must confess I am satisfied to find you well_.”

Jim, despite everything, finds himself smirking as he squints against the sun, “Careful, Spock, Bones might suspect you of having a feeling.”

Then McCoy’s voice is cutting in, “ _You have no idea, Jim_.”)

—Jim knows what he has to do and readies himself. There’ll be time for regret later – but not right now.

-

“‘ _No’_? Why ‘ _no’_?” Jim demands, doing his best to keep his tone even.

“I beg your understanding,” the ambassador says. “My mind had not touched the mind of _my Jim_ for quite some time – I am afraid that it was instinctive to, as humans say, _overshare_. Emotions. Memories more than the ones of Nero.”

“There’s something else, isn’t there?” Jim asks.

-

Jim’s wounds from his previous bouts of _training_ reopen and begin bleeding once more, but he pays them no heed. Instead, he embraces the pain as he blocks a blow from the Andorian, before hooking Kloog’s leg out from under him (Kloog’s traded his whip for two short-swords and they rattle to the ground as he loses his footing) and he’s overwhelmed with _déjà vu_ – and Jim frustratingly realizes he remembers this, he knows which moves are coming before his any of opponent even knows they’ll be making it.

It’s help that Jim doesn’t need.

Not even counting the Romulans nor the Klingons nor even his very own first officer – Jim had cut his teeth on vicious bar fights with odds worse than this, and one particularly memorable winter on a little planet called Tarsus IV which had been spent running from once-upon-a-time friends who laughed as they hunted him.

With a grunt and a pivot and another swing of his weapon and a blocked blow, Jim shoves away the memories and calls up only instinct.

The Providers tell him: _three deaths_.

And Jim doesn’t hesitate to cut down Kloog with a spear to the gut, and then he’s wrapping Lar’s own net around his face and pulling him and, with a quick and sure movement, Jim snaps the Thrall’s neck. But the Thrall who is supposed to be the third, the Andorian, rolls out of the arena – wounded, but alive, with Jim’s dagger between his ribs.

The Providers then send in Shahna.

-

“There’s something else, isn’t there?” Jim asks.

“Yes,” Ambassador Spock says. “But, if it is not amongst the memories that I have unintentionally given, then I do not wish to speak of it.”

Jim doesn’t need memories, though, to hazard a guess. “You were in love him.”

The Ambassador does that thing, then, where he smiles without smiling, and simply says, “ _Love_ , Jim, is a human emotion.”

 _That’s not a denial_ , Jim notes.

“A simple feeling,” Jim retorts, not entirely sure where the words have come from.

-

“You lied to me,” Shahna snarls.

“I needed information,” Jim says. “I’m sorry about the situation, but you have to understand,” he twirls the two small swords he’s picked up from where Kloog had dropped them, “nothing, no one, comes before my ship and my returning to her.” Jim juts his chin out, indicates with the motion the two dead and one injured. “And no stranger comes before my crew.”

She screams at him and charges and Jim bats away her spear with one blade—

(Shahna twists and falls and he kicks her legs out from under her, she reaches for her spear and Kirk is there and his knife is to her throat. But he hesitates. They’re both breathing hard and he _knows_ what the price is and what the Providers want for the release of the _Enterprise_ and the freedom of the Thralls – but concentrated violence has never come easy for Kirk. So, he pushes himself away and stands and—)

—and with the other blade, Jim brings it up and cleaves deep, slices cleanly through Shahna’s throat, opening her trachea and her jugular, and blood sprays hot against Jim’s face. Shahna falls to her knees, her head titling back and back, exposing cartilage and muscle and all the other inner workings never meant to see daylight.

-

This time, there is no distance separating them. They share a table in the corner of an empty Starbase rec room. It’s been less than a month since they spoke last, but a month in the middle of the five-year mission is an eternity that the Ambassador appreciates, and one Jim is slowly beginning to understand.

“That other guy,” Jim says, “your Kirk – I wish he wasn’t in my head. We’re not really the same person.”

“Nor am I the same as _your_ first officer,” Ambassador Spock says, his hands folded together, looking at Jim with a certain fondness.

“All I’m saying,” Jim says, looking away when he can’t bear it anymore, he can’t look at Ambassador Spock the way he can look at _his_ Spock, “is that I don’t want you to be disappointed. When you look at me.”

The Ambassador says nothing.

-

Jim closes his eyes against the blood trying to flow into them, but then anger surges through him and he rounds on the sky.

“ _Three lives_ ,” he shouts. “Three lives _wasted_ so you could prove a point, Providers. Give me back my ship, release my crew – and do your part for the remaining Thralls of this planet.”

A pause before Provider Two says, “The terms of the bargain have been met, Jim Kirk. We will uphold our end. Perhaps you can visit us again in a few years? Check on the progress of the Thralls?”

Jim snorts as he throws down his swords. He turns his eyes to a different part of the sky and calls out, “ _Enterprise_ , are you there?”

“ _We are here, Captain_ ,” Spock answers.

Jim walks over to Chekov and Uhura, makes it a point not to look at them directly, as he says to Spock, “Three to beam up. Energize when ready.”

-

A long silence passes between them and just when Jim opens his mouth to change the subject, Spock, _his_ Spock, walks in.

-

Jim is on the transporter pad and Bones is the first person he sees – waving his tricorder around as soon as Jim’s finished materializing. And, just behind him, with hands clasped neatly behind his back, is Spock – and he’s looking at Jim and Jim’s looking right back at him and no one else in that transporter room matters.

It’s strange, Jim knows, the way Spock’s eyeing him – as if Jim were a treasured item returned after a long absence; as if Jim wasn’t dripping blood not entirely his own on the floor of the transporter room, his chest heaving with exhaustion from his fight.

For all the time he spends here, Jim wishes the biobeds were a little more comfortable. Bones has waved his magic wand and knitted Jim’s wounds closed, but the deeper parts of them still ache so Jim rests on his side, shifting every few moments to stay comfortable.

“I keep wondering if there was another way,” Jim says, when Spock visits him, still with that _look_ in his eyes. “If maybe I had spared Shahna, would the Providers have maybe let it pass? Why take three lives when two would have sufficed. Maybe they would have thought more of the Federation if I’d been merciful.”

“You did what was necessary, Captain,” Spock says and now that _look_ has been dialed up and there’s a certain _heat_ —

“Since when did violence do it for Vulcans?” Jim asks, a smirk in place despite the overall situation that had called for that violence in the first place.

“Not Vulcans, just me,” Spock clarifies, his voice dangerously monotone, “and, it seems, just with you. Do not look so surprised, Jim. If you recall, within twenty-four hours of our first meeting, my hands were wrapped around your throat.”

Spock’s candidness startles a laugh out of Jim and he finds himself reaching up for Spock and pulling him close.

-

“Am I interrupting?” Spock asks, his eyes passing between Jim and the Ambassador.

And Jim looks at his Spock and his Spock holds his gaze, and the long-since healed wound from Triskelion itches.

“Not all, Mr. Spock,” Jim says, his hand rubbing over that old wound as he watches his Spock move across the room, his eyes remaining steady on Jim the whole time.

When Spock settles in next to Jim, the Ambassador is smiling with his eyes as he says, “Tell me of where you’ve been.”

-z-

End.


End file.
